A trio of top five results, including a first win of 2012 for Andrew Jordan meant that he started the second half of the 2012 British Touring Car Championship with his best weekend of the season.
Right from the off, Jordan in the #77 NGTC Honda Civic was right on the pace and qualifying saw him continue his run of top four starts as he set the fourth fastest time of the session.
“We went quickest in the first and second sectors and I had a small off in the third sector. We could have been fastest by a couple of tenths of a second,” explained Jordan about the qualifying session.
Looking ahead to rounds 16, 17 and 18, Jordan and the team were optimistic of a good performance.
“From fourth on the grid we thought our tyre wear would be better, but it would be hard to race forward. The other cars like the Toyota are so quick in a straight line; they were 5mph faster than us through the speed traps.”
The first race saw Jordan and Dave Newsham get involved in a tight scrap for the final step of the podium, and it was the Pirtek racer who came out on top by the flag.
“In the race I got stuck behind Dave Newsham for a bit and he was very quick in a straight line,” added Jordan. “But his tyres were going off. I got up on the inside of him onto the back straight and got ahead, but he just drove past me on the straight. He cut back in before the Esses and then got on the brakes really early. We looked on the data and I had to get on the brakes 46 metres earlier than the previous lap. But I got past him at the right-hander for third place.”
Jordan broke his victory drought in the second race after he took advantage of an incident between Jason Plato and fellow Honda driver Matt Neal at Murrays, an incident which saw the lead duo both go off the circuit.
“We gained a bit more success ballast for the second race,” Jordan continued. I didn’t defend too hard from Matt because his car was lighter and I let him go after Plato and tried to go with him, which worked a treat. They sorted each other out and I got past them both. It was a huge relief to win and that last lap felt like it went on for a long time. It was a great result for the Pirtek team.”
The final race of the weekend saw Jordan line up ninth after the reverse grid and despite the 45kgs of success ballast on board, he secured a fifth place finish to keep himself in the hunt for the drivers’ Championship.
“For the third race we had 45kg of success ballast and started ninth on the grid and got up to fifth, which was a good result. We’re certainly not out of it and a couple more days like that could really get us into the title battle,” concluded Jordan, who heads to Knockhill in two weeks time fourth in the Championship and leading the way in the Independents’.